Unspeakable
by Indigo Tantarian
Summary: There was a messenger child with 'UNSPEAKABLE' tattooed on his inner And one day, he turned up in the home of the one citizen of Night Vale to whom nothing was It would change him, give him a Nothing would ever be UNSPEAKABLE


**UNSPEAKABLE**

The City Council had begun using children as messengers. It was a system that still had a few kinks: At first the children would get distracted, or run away, or simply sit down and cry. But with a few deep bloodstone rituals, the Council managed to make them obedient to a fault. Like golems or robots. The children barely responded to stimuli of any kind.

No one knew where they came from. No one recognized them.

Of course, they often had trouble carrying complex messages. They wouldn't carry anything for long. The Council took to tattooing simple messages on their inner lips, and reusing messenger children to deliver common messages.

'UNSPEAKABLE.'

This was probably the most common message. The UNSPEAKABLE child appeared often when citizens got too... chatty. He was off-putting, with his piercing stare and shifting appearance. No, not exactly shifting... indescribable. He seemed perfectly average (aside from his eyes), but there was something indisputably strange about him. Something other.

And he seemed to know things before they happened. Whenever people met to talk about things they had seen, or decisions made by the City Council, or the Shape in Mission Grove Park, there was the dead-eyed boy, mouth hanging open slightly. It didn't take long before everyone in Night Vale could recognize him on sight, and knew that their meeting was canceled.

This continued for a while.

Then one day the UNSPEAKABLE child turned up in the kitchen of the one citizen for whom nothing seemed unspeakable. The one everyone listened to, but secretly wondered when the reeducation would begin. If it hadn't already. And the UNSPEAKABLE child stood and stared, unseeing, his eyes blank.

Silver eyes looked up slowly to regard him. "I thought you'd turn up sooner or later. You're not the first. Well? Sit down."

The boy did not sit.

"Oh no, that's no way to behave in the house. Sit."

He did not move.

Adult watched child closely. Finally the boy's hand was taken, sharply but not altogether unkindly, and pulled to rest on the edge of the table. The other hand was placed on the back of the chair. "Sit down, I'll get you some juice. It's a hot day to be UNSPEAKABLE."

The boy didn't move while the juice was poured, but then slowly, as if in a dream, he sat.

A smile, and a light pat on the head. "Good boy. Drink."

His hands were placed around the cup, and after a moment he clumsily raised it to his lips and began gulping methodically. When he had finished, he put the cup down slowly. A faint frown began to form on his face, and he blinked.

"There." The voice was soft, gentle, coaxing. "Can you see now?"

He blinked faster, and shook his head vaguely.

Footsteps padded nearer, and smooth, soft hands cupped his narrow face. "No," the voice echoed his confused sentiment. "No, you can't. But you will. You will." And two warm fingers rested over each eye. He closed his eyes, because somehow it felt like something he needed to do.

"Cecil," the voice said, and the UNSPEAKABLE child gasped softly.

"Cecil." Again, and he shivered.

"Cecil." Once more, just softly.

He was panting now, and colors and shapes swam in his mind, things he didn't know how to process. But they began to come into focus. He squinted and turned his head and uttered a guttural moan.

"No longer UNSPEAKABLE," the woman murmured, sinking into another chair and swaying back and forth.

The child – now Cecil – watched until her form became familiar to him. He looked at other things as well, but nothing more than the woman who had named him, claimed him, given him a self.

Growing bold, Cecil reached out and touched her arm. Her head flew up, and she sat stiff as a board, staring right through him.

"Someone's going to kill you one day, Cecil," she intoned. "And it will involve a mirror."

He stared at her in awe, and finally giggled out of sheer joy, because Cecil, that was him. And she, this other person who was here with him, was talking about him. Talking to him. She knew things. She said things.

And he would do the same.


End file.
